Wage/price

With the tight labor market the number of employees going on strike is increasing rapidly. In areas like nurses and teachers plus unions gaining steam at places like Starbucks, Amazon and Apple it is a new day for big labor. Here is a headline from the Washington Post. Strikes are sweeping the labor market as workers wield new leverage While this is a good thing it does lead to what economist call wage/price inflation. As people make more money businesses must increase prices and things spiral up. In the high inflation days at the end of the Carter years wages went up but inflation went up more. Wages in 1980 increased by 10% but inflation went up by 12.5%.